Welcome to Tezuka In English

Osamu Tezuka (1928 – 1989)

Osamu Tezuka (手塚 治虫) was a manga author and creator of many of the first Japanese animation. While Tezuka’s best known creation is, arguably, the world-renowned children’s series Astro Boy (1952-68), he drew more than 150,000 pages of manga in his lifetime – touching on every style and genre. He wrote for every age-group, from young children to mature audiences, and single-handedly created the majority of the genres and character-types we see in manga and anime today.

Though he is one of the most respected cultural figures of 20th century Japan, finding information in English on his work can be difficult. As such, we’d like to welcome you to Tezuka In English – home of the global community for English-speaking Tezuka fans. Here you will find information on his life story, the many manga and anime series Tezuka created, his beloved Star-System cast of characters, what’s available in English and what’s not. You’ll also find links to many other useful web resources including publishers’ sites, official publicity sites, and other fan sites. While you’re at it, join our forums and and meet other Tezuka fans from around the world!

All Life is Sacred…”

Tezuka In English is a volunteer-run fan site working in conjunction with TezukaOsamu.net, the official Japanese website. We’re always looking for help, so if you have a link to suggest, please contact us!

Ever wondered why Chad Cactus had his shirt off when he was dunking his wife in a tub of milk? Well, chances are, you never even thought twice about that memorable little scene from Tezuka’s Mr. Cactus (1951-54).

Osamu Tezuka loved to tinker with his stories, and putting together the Osamu Tezuka Complete Manga Works editions provided him with a golden opportunity to do just that. In many cases, Tezuka’s edits are simply expanding, adding or trimming panels here and there to improve the story pacing, however it’s fascinating to find the telltale signs of an edit - usually only visible when you know what’s missing.

If you compare the two page layouts in the first image set above you’ll notice that Tezuka decided against having Mrs. Cactus hang her husband out to dry, but his quick escape by slipping out of his shirt still leaves him half naked in the final edition.

Tezuka was also a master at re-purposing his artwork. In the second image set, you can see how Tezuka uses the existing landscape formatted splash page artwork from the Mr. Cactus, Get Your Gun! supplement to the September 1952 edition of Shonen Illustrated [少年画報] to create a new portrait formatted page for the 1980 Complete Works edition.